


Bonds of Friendship

by threewalls



Category: St Clare's - Enid Blyton
Genre: Boarding School, Bondage, Community: kink_bingo, Community: trope_bingo, F/F, Gen, Non-Sexual Bondage, Passionate Female Friendship, Schoolgirls, Warm and Fuzzy Feelings
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-10-20
Updated: 2013-10-20
Packaged: 2017-12-29 22:09:15
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,871
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1010685
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/threewalls/pseuds/threewalls
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Running together in the three-legged race helps Lucy see Margery in a new light. (Set right at the end of "Summer Term at St Clare's.")</p>
            </blockquote>





	Bonds of Friendship

**Author's Note:**

  * For [notaverse](https://archiveofourown.org/users/notaverse/gifts).



> For Mec, because I wouldn't have otherwise known about Lucy and Margery. 
> 
> "Bondage" for Kink Bingo and "hand-cuffed/bound together" for Trope Bingo.

Every girl at St Clare's woke with excitement on the last Saturday before end of term. That afternoon there was to be a special party for the whole school. 

Luncheon was to be a fantastic picnic feast out on the lawns. Cook had promised all sorts of lovely sandwiches, as well as cream buns and chocolate cakes and fruit cakes and buttery scones bought in from shops in town. 

There would also be a series of races. Not proper races like those the girls ran in gym, but silly ones to match the silly, distracted end of term mood. You know the sort - hard-boiled eggs balanced on spoons borrowed from the kitchens or girls jumping along with their legs tucked into the rough sacking that the potatoes came in. 

This special end of term treat had been arranged by Winifred James and Belinda Towers. Winifred would not be taking the train to St Clare's in September but to St Andrews in Scotland! Because of this, the mistresses had needed to choose a new head girl. And who could be better than Belinda, who had been sports captain for the past three terms?

Winifred and Belinda knew how hard the girls had worked all term, working their brains as well as they could, even though the summer weather was so delightful outside. They thought especially of girls like them in the top forms, many of whom had studied quite hard for some very important exams, but there were also girls in the lower forms who had worked very hard.

No one in the second form had worked harder than Lucy Oriell. Lucy's father had suffered a dreadful accident the term before and she had only stayed on at St Clare's for the summer term to prepare for the third form scholarship exam. 

Lucy was usually a merry girl, but it was an extra happy Lucy who sat beside her friend Margery Fenworthy at the picnic. This was because the Head had told her the day before that the results of the scholarship exam had come. Hard-working Lucy had won the scholarship, even though she was two years younger than the usual age! And of course she chose St Clare's! 

At the picnic, Lucy felt like she had woken up from a dream. The summer sunshine seemed brighter. The sound of the other girls' laughter seemed more joyous. The taste of the ham in her sandwich seemed more savoury. No lemonade Lucy had ever drunk seemed to taste as tart and sweet. Lucy was so glad that she had stayed on to try for the scholarship exam. Now she would be able to stay at St Clare's with all her friends, and especially with Margery, who would also be going up a form next term.

Margery was quite funny to watch at the picnic. She jumped every time the sports captain announced a new race, as if she was ready to run in them all, but she never stood up to join in any of the races. This seemed very queer to Lucy, as there was nothing that Margery loved more than games. 

After this happened a few times, Lucy asked her friend if Margery didn't want to race. 

Margery only stubbornly shook her head. "That one wasn't the race I am waiting for," she said. 

Lucy smiled. Sitting with her friend also seemed especially nice to Lucy today and she was happy to wait with Margery, ready to cheer on her friend.

It wasn't the sack races Margery was waiting for, or the tug-of-war. But as soon as Belinda called out for the three-legged race, Margery was up on her feet in a flash.

"Come on, Lucy. Let us race as a pair," Margery said. 

Lucy gladly took hold of her friend's hand, touched that Margery would wait until they could race together. They walked together to the starting line where all the other girls were waiting for the sports captain to tie their feet together for the race.

When it was Lucy and Margery's turn, Belinda looked at the two girls and frowned. She explained that she had arranged the races so that only two forms would race at a time, the first form with the second, the third form with the fourth, and the top form girls together. This was so that the younger girls did not have to compete against the older girls. 

Lucy and Margery were both in the second form, but Margery was already sixteen. 

"Oh please let us race together," Margery begged Belinda. What a difference from the sulky, rude girl from only a term before! "You chose us to play the St Christopher's girls at tennis for the second form, and didn't we win? You know what a good team Lucy and I are."

"I know you two work well together, but you may find having such different sized legs more difficult for this sort of thing than for tennis. But these races are only for fun, so I'll let you race together if you'd like," Belinda said. 

"Oh, thank you, Belinda," Margery said. 

Lucy did not answer at all for she was quite distracted.

Margery was quite tall whereas Lucy was what Mam'zelle would call "petite". Lucy had looked up and found that the top of her head only just reached her friend's shoulders. She had always known that Margery was the taller girl, but the difference seemed so much more striking as they stood so close together.

Belinda had to ask Lucy twice to move her right foot right up against Margery's left foot before she could kneel down to tie a cord around their ankles with a stout knot.

"Is that too tight?" Belinda asked.

"I think it's just right," Margery said. 

Lucy's right ankle felt hotter than her left, pressed up tight against Margery's, but the cord was still comfortable. With their feet pressed side by side, it was easy to see that Margery's shoe was an inch or even two longer than Lucy's. And Margery's legs were very much longer, Lucy saw with dismay. There was her bare knee right next to Margery's stockinged shin, for Margery's knee was much higher up.

Lucy startled when she felt Margery put her arm across Lucy's back. She looked up at her friend's face, wondering if Margery had noticed any of what Lucy had, but Margery was not watching her friend. Her eyes were keenly set on the finish line across the lawn instead. 

The fierce expression on Margery's face made Lucy long for her sketchpad and pencil. She had not been able to draw nearly as much this term as she had wished. But there would be many other times when Lucy might draw whatever she wished, Lucy thought, now that she had won the scholarship. There would also be many other times when Margery looked so fierce, for that was how Margery usually looked during games. Margery did so love to win.

"I ran races like this at some of my old schools. Put your arm around my waist and hold on tight," Margery told Lucy, and Lucy did just that. 

Holding on with her arm as tightly as their ankles were bound together, Lucy turned her attention to the far side of the lawn. There was no one else in the whole school Lucy would rather have raced with. She felt the happy, excited beat of her heart as she waited for the race to begin.

Ready. Steady. Go! Miss Theobald called out. And then they were off down the field. All the other girls watching the race shouted encouragement, clapping and laughing to see the girls walking and wobbling down the grass in pairs.

Lucy and Margery were both very quick on their feet when playing lacrosse, but of course, no one plays lacrosse with their feet tied to another girl. At the start of the race, they were quite unsteady, their different legs pulling this way and that, all out of step. The cord around their ankles did not feel so comfortable now!

Then Margery began to hiss. "Middle, out," she said and then repeated the odd phrase. "Middle, out." 

Lucy realised immediately what Margery meant. One could call out "left, right" when a group was running, but that wouldn't work in a three-legged race. Lucy needed to move her right foot when Margery moved her left. Clever Margery, Lucy thought, and focused all her attention on moving in time with Margery's hissed directions.

They soon began to make better speed, almost running the remaining length of the grass. Margery now took smaller, faster steps, just like Lucy's. And that little piece of cord now felt snug and helpful as their middle legs moved almost as one.

A great noise seemed to have erupted as soon as Lucy and Margery crossed the finish.

But alas for them, the cheers were for the O'Sullivan twins from the first form! The twins had reached the finish just before them. A crowd of girls including the sports captain and the head girl had crowded around the twins. Everyone was cheering and clapping them in congratulations.

Even though she had just finished running the race, Lucy felt cold all through. Lucy wasn't a mean girl. She felt happy for Pat and Isabel, who were also her friends even though they were now in different forms. But Lucy felt a little disappointment for herself, for she had come to hope they would win. She felt even more for Margery, who had waited to run this race with Lucy instead of one of the others by herself and had come up with such a clever way for the two of them to run as a team.

"Oh, Margery. I'm so sorry," she said.

Lucy was quite astonished when Margery put her other arm around Lucy's shoulders, pulling her into as much of a hug as they could with their feet still tied together. She dared a glance at her friend's face, and then could only watch in wonder. Instead of the disappointment Lucy had feared, Margery was smiling gaily down at her, even though they had not won! 

"We came second to the O'Sullivan twins," Margery said. "That's not bad at all. Of course they can run better at a three-legged race than anyone else. But next term, we shall be in third form and unless our form or the fourth gains a pair of twins, I'm sure we'll win then."

Lucy felt as giddy as she had when Miss Theobald had told her that she had won the scholarship and would be able to stay on at St Clare's. Yes, she would have next term at the school that had become so dear to her. More three-legged races, games of lacrosse and trips into town, more French essays and nature walks, more art classes-- oh, there were a thousand things that Lucy would sketch now that she had the time. Next term with all her friends, with dear Margery, and the next term and the next.

"Next term," Lucy agreed. She didn't need her pencil right then to capture Margery's expression, not when she could match it with a smile of her own.

**Author's Note:**

> You can also comment at my [LJ](http://threewalls.livejournal.com/371592.html) or my [DW](http://threewalls.dreamwidth.org/247096.html).


End file.
